


translated into treasure

by signalbeam



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Biting, F/F, Fix-It, Knifeplay, Relationship Negotiation, Robot Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:39:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7245274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sameen, the Machine, and retiring to a ranch in Wyoming. </p><p>Actually. Hold on that retirement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	translated into treasure

1\. 

 

After shooting up DC, they went west, barely stopping much longer than to pull over by a motel, crawl into bed together, and wake up at dawn to keep going. And then they had pulled off the highways in Wyoming, switched onto some sad two-lane road barely wider than a bike path, and rode it out to this old cabin, standing alone against the sky and dusty Western scrub. Coming in from the front door, Sameen estimated it was about fifty square feet larger than a shitty New York efficiency, but with even older appliances and, somehow, even more mice: a few turns of her head and she spotted mouse droppings in three corners. A cold draft blew in from the windows and under the doors and, she swore, between the floorboards. 

For a housewarming present—when had she even picked these up?—Root handed her a shotgun, two nine millimeters, an assault rifle, a slingshot, and a small package wrapped in a black trash bag that Root called, in a whisper, a special Russian. 

“A…” 

“It’s a bomb!” Root said, dropping the box, bag and all, into Sameen’s hands. “I’d love to stay, but I have to jet. God’s calling.” 

“You’re locking a tortured prisoner-of-war vet in an isolated cabin with four guns and a bomb?” she said, sitting on the bed. It was the cleanest thing in the cabin. She thought about pulling Root onto it and keeping her off-balance for an hour or two, finally get her revenge for how nice it had been to go west, cheek-to-shoulder, against another warm body and getting brown hair blown down the front of her jacket and around her neck. But there was another uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. They—Root, the Machine—were locking her away here. 

“It’s not my decision, sweetie. You won’t be able to kill an elk with your bare hands, anyway. Besides, She thinks you’ll have fun.” 

“Fun has bad guys you can shoot.”

“I’m a little busy right now,” Root whispered, suddenly turning her head to the side and shivering with excitement. “Sorry, not you.” She already knew that, she tried to say, but was interrupted. “If you don’t want to be alone here, then come with me.” 

“I can handle a real job, Root.” 

“This is a real job. A number.” 

“Wait—really?” 

“But you know how much I love pulling off a heist with you. You at a director’s crummy dinner party... flirting with some whatever until you can bluejack his phone and get his log-in to the church of Scientology… And then we might find a nice wall to fuck against.” She ran a hand down Sameen’s arm, then tugged at the lapels of her jacket until Sameen had to stand up, toe-to-toe with Root and with barely an inch between them. “What do you say?” 

“I think you’re going to run out of gas fifty miles from here.” 

“Poor me,” Root said and let Sameen go. 

“I’ll do this number,” she said. She sounded confident, but she had just decided to do it now. Wood stove in the corner. Cast iron pots and pans piled on the stove. She could make this work. She didn’t care whether the Machine thought she was ready or not; she didn’t have any more faith that the Machine would know her full capabilities than Samaritan did. But the way Root was looking at her, full of pride and trust. She didn’t know. Maybe it was worth giving it a try. 

Root took a few more supplies out of her backpack. “Here’s a sat phone,” she said. “It’ll go right to me. I’ll always pick up. Or She will. We trade off sometimes.” 

Root pinched Sameen’s nose between her middle finger and ring finger with a little smile. She put her hands on Sameen’s shoulder. Her palms inched closer to her neck, then swept away.

“You can kiss me,” Sameen said, trying to make it sound magnanimous. Hell yeah Root should count herself lucky—lucky that she was a great lay and an awesome kisser, or else Sameen would’ve let the CIA take her away from the safe house without coming to get her. How long ago had that been? But she was the one left sitting on the bed when Root left, watching her through the dirty window, waiting to see whether she’d turn back. 

 

*** 

 

First thing was first. Heat. Wood stove would do okay for the cabin, but she’d have to do something about the shit insulation. How long would she be here? A few days, she told herself, pushing away the part of her that was preparing to be stuck here for months. 

Nothing in the fridge but beer and stale bread, not moldy. Cabinets had honey roasted peanuts, vodka, and dusty plates that exuded a palpable sense of depression. Under the sink, Lysol, sponges, water stains. Three flashlights, one burnt out but the other two usable. A box of matches, a lighter, a first aid kit, binoculars. Drawers had utensils, including knives. Bathroom had more Lysol, toilet paper, towels, and two gallons of cloudy bottled water. Good thing she and Root had gotten toothbrushes and toothpaste on their way here. 

She circled the cabin outside. Propane tank to heat the water. Old and empty. A stack of dry wood, at least half which had gone bad already. She picked out some good ones and took it back inside to the stove. Clean, she noticed, hardly black on the inside at all. 

No books, no letters. No old magazines, bills, ads. Who the fuck lived out here?

No hot water, either. She filled a basin with cold water and washed herself down with a towel. Then she took some beers from the fridge and waited. That was something she had trained herself to do. It wasn’t like going to sleep, more forcing yourself to view staying still and breathing as having the same weight and satisfaction as going out for a long run or watching a target from a rooftop a quarter of a mile away from the long nose of her sniper rifle or waiting out the hours between simulations. The feeling stretched her out, and that stretch carried her from afternoon to darkness. 

When she got out of bed, the sun had set and an army of stars had moved to take its place. No moonlight, no street lamps. She had been in some isolated places before, but looking up at the stars through her window, she had the sense that she could feel the stars spinning around Polaris while the ground beneath her yanked her another way and there she was, her feet being thrown away from her body, her head being thrown by gravity farther and farther away. It wasn’t panic, it was a defense. She was waiting for it to stop being real. 

Think. When would she have seen anything like this? Not as a kid in Qatar or Texas or New York. Not in the Marines sweeping through Afghanistan, her night vision goggles trained for the flash of enemy cannons in the black swell of the hills. Not in Samaritan’s simulations, where the sky was filled in with either a searing afternoon blue or a flat dark gray. Not in South Africa. Not anywhere she knew. 

Harold had offered her something before he died. A new life. Peace. Stability. He said that everyone’s job was over, he was going to do what he should have done ages ago. He had not sounded like himself. He sounded relieved and overjoyed—hanging off of John, his glasses broken, separated from her and Root by a locked door. Then they went off and launched a missile and saved the world. And then they had died. 

There. She spotted it. Through the binoculars. Across a flat plain. A large, sprawling crown, the tips glowing like a tiger’s claws. 

 

*** 

 

2\. 

Sunrise came with a delivery of propane and supplies: a shovel, a hunting vest, a change of clothes, a single bar of soap, a pillow with ammo stuffed in the pillowcase, a bag of decorative black rocks, chlorine pills, and a burner phone. She flipped it open. Signal. 3G, even. Her own phone had cell service but no data. 

“What am I supposed to do with this shit?” she said into the air. To her annoyance, a text message came through a second later. 

_GOOD MORNING_

“Great,” she said. She set the phone to silent and put it in her pocket. 

The propane delivery to the cabin must have been part of a larger shipment, probably to whatever compound was over there. That was where she’d find her number. Probably. 

No nearby locomotives. There was also, she noticed, pretty much zero food lying around. Looked like the Machine expected her to hunt her dinner. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder, stuffed a nine millimeter and some spare ammo into her waistband, and headed out. It was overcast and gray, air humid and heavy and thick. Like if she pushed at it hard enough, she might run into an invisible wall. 

The fence emerged two and a half miles into the walk. Tall with barbed wire on top, and the posts rammed deep into the earth and mounted cameras pointed inside the compound. A sign: private property, closed circuit camera, trespassers will be persecuted to the full extent of the law. All of that usual. But through the fence she saw zebras and reindeer and wildebeests scattered around. Closest to her were gazelles, their heads twitching from one nervous angle to another. She moved too close and they scattered, zigzagging away from her and from each other. 

No entrance that she could see. There was a small shack, maybe a quarter of a mile down, inside the fence, and some bushes to provide cover. She licked her lips, then took out one of her nine millimeters and shot down one camera and waited. No alarms, no fright—did anyone even care? 

She pulled out the sat phone and said, “Root.”

“Yes, sweetie?” 

“You sent me to a fucking zoo?” 

Root grunted. A second later came the steady ra-ta-ta-ta of machine gun fire. “She’s telling me you should have brought your slingshot. Were you ignoring Her texts?” 

Sameen looked at her burner phone. _DRESS IN LAYERS. SLINGSHOT RECOMMENDED. LOADOUT INCREASES RISK OF PERCEPTION AS ACTIVE THREAT BY 93%._ “I don’t need it to tell me how to do my job.”

“Absolutely,” Root said with unexpected fervor. “I know you, Shaw. You can do it. But I’m still two days away from being able to come back and provide any support, so if you want to fly in blind, make sure you have an escape plan. I have to go, the mothers are coming.” Another spray of gunfire and a moan—over what? Pain? Excitement? She wanted to be there, she wanted to see what was happening. She must had let out a noise because the next thing out of Root’s mouth was a breathy laugh. “Bye-bye.” 

Nothing coming down from the ground, but she did spot something from afar: a drone. Now she saw why the Machine had wanted her to bring a slingshot. She’d just have to gun it down. She took shots and blew it out, then changed cover. A few more minutes and some guy in a golf cart came rolling out. Older man, white, early sixties, lean but wearing khakis that slumped around his knees and a beat up camo shirt. He inspected the cameras and the drone, then took his golf cart down to an exit in the fence. He left the golf cart behind and came around the fence. When he didn’t find anything, he took out a notepad, scribbled something down, and then took some pictures. 

No walkie-talkie or phone call. No cell phone to jack, either. She’d have to find a way to bug him manually. She followed him carefully back to the gate and watched him take his golf cart over to the shack. From here, she could see that the compound extended even further out, with even taller, lankier animals lurking in their pens. 

She had to find a way to get inside that shack. And to do that, she’d need another distraction. She considered starting a ruckus at her starting point, but that’d put her in a bind if she needed an exit route. So she moved further north and fired off some shots to knock out the cameras. The drone came out barely a minute later, and the old man went riding out in his cart. Sameen sprinted for the fence, picked the lock and sprinted to the shack. The door was unlocked. She entered and gave it a quick overlook. Nothing electronic here, just notebooks full of logs, a radio, keys, a flashlight, and monitors full of ostriches and antelope and reindeer and even a fucking lion. And a map. She grabbed onto that and took a picture of it with her phone. 

According to the map, she was in the northeastern section of the compound. The approximate boundaries set by the fences were indicated in dotted lines. Further south was a much larger stretch labeled “hunting grounds.” 

Now things were clicking into place. Whoever was down here was breeding these animals to hunt and kill. This shack was the warden’s shack. But it was awfully low tech. Where were the drones coming from? The cameras had to be transmitting elsewhere. 

She was too hungry to do this on shitty cabin breakfast. She searched around the shack, bugging it as she rummaged. Nuts, wholesale pack of granola bars, bananas, jerky. Not a steak, but she’d take it. Slim Jims? Fuck no. Line drawn. 

The cameras were networked. If they were networked, there had to be a computer. She checked the map for any other buildings. A vet house, a barn… More pens… Maybe she should just shoot the old guy and make him tell her. 

Her phone buzzed. She picked it up, annoyed. 

_RISK OF DETECTION AT THRESHOLD_

She left the cabin, making it to the exit and into cover before the golf cart came bumbling back. 

“Something tells me you’re already hooked into the cameras,” Sameen said. The phone didn’t do anything in response. “So why put me in the cabin? Why bring me here?” 

_INITIAL RECONNAISANCE COMPLETE_

“What, bugging the shack?”

_YES_

“Shut up again,” she said. “I need to listen.”

He was reporting back to his boss. 

“Telling you, Matt, don’t think it’s kids. Probably just whoever you hired to put the cameras up fucked up their job. Or those geologists of yours, I don’t like the looks of them, I bet they’re up to something…” 

She had never seen the person on the other end of the radio, but the second she heard his voice, she knew the type: rich, restless, and exiled out west for bad behavior. “Joe, I’ve told you this before, the surveyors are my people. Their job doesn’t involve knocking cameras down.”

“I’ve been working these lands the last fifteen years, longer than you’ve even inherited them. I’m on the ground day in day out and you’re not. Let’s just be clear about that, you’re not, Mattie. You’re never down here and you got your geology boys out here like it’s their first time out of New York, looking for gold and going crazy whenever they see a zebra, just pew, pew… And they’re here all day and all night and there’s no need for them to be. You know just as well as I do that all your boys are going to find is that this land is nothing but pasture and we should make good on that, start advertising again, get some guys with some guns in here. The will says you can’t sell any of this anyway, so might as well bring back what was working for you before.”

“Joe, for fuck’s sake, no one’s bringing back the hunting range. It’s too expensive…” 

“Fracking? You trying to bring fracking here?” 

“I didn’t say fracking, I said…”

The conversation went on for a while. Joe and Matt hung up on each other. Then Joe adjusted his radio. 

“Tried getting rid of them,” Joe said. “But no fucking luck.” 

“Just going to have to do it carefully,” said the other guy. Another man. Soft-spoken and distracted. She pressed her ear to the speaker to better hear him. Probably in his fifties, she’d guess. Voice scratchy. A macho smoker kind of guy. 

“Problem’s them new cameras Matt’s got all put up. Can’t take anything down without a drone fleet coming after you. Was that you today shooting all them down?” 

“Fucking water buffalo finally birthing. Breech. Been in the barn since sunrise.” 

“Then who the fuck is it?” 

“You better hope it’s someone who can take out enough cameras to empty out Matt’s drone army. That way we won’t get any trouble tonight.” 

“Almost makes me wish it was a geologist just so I could shoot ‘em. Can’t think of anyone who’d go around doing it.”

“Might be kids.” 

“Aw, you don’t know nothing.” 

Sameen turned the volume down and scanned the area with her binoculars. No geologists she could see here. She bet there was more land out there and that some of it was probably closer to town. Or whatever passed as a town here. If the Machine wanted her to go out to the town, then it would’ve left her something. Even something as dumb as an old rusted out mountain bike. 

She spent some more time looking at the animals. On a second look, they all looked old. Haggard. The herds were thin, the beasts moved slowly through the twilight of their life, striped gray and black, with little black eyes. Why were they bringing animals in? Had something died already and needed to be replaced? Or were they running a sell-buy operation on this Matt guy’s dime? 

If she was going to explore this place, then she might as well start off by blowing out all the cameras she could. And finding a way to steal barn man’s lunch. She was starving. 

 

***

 

She spent the rest of the day shooting cameras until drones stopped flying out. That left her a clear path on the inside from her entry point from the cabin to the vet’s barn, where a bearded man was sitting with water buffalos, just as he said. His name was Godwin and his lunch had consisted of a tuna sandwich that she personally judged mediocre. Canned tuna? No thanks. Chips were good quality. His water was spiked with vodka and that gave her the much needed boost in daring to also steal his apple and banana. 

She had a chance to estimate the population of the animals: eighteen heads of zebras, ten ostriches, four rhinos, six antelope, seven smaller antelope, four reindeer… two mountain lions, and some donkeys. From the sound of it, Matt had inherited the animals and wasn’t allowed to sell them according to some will. He hadn’t wanted to put them down or have hunters shoot them up, so he was waiting for them to die. Godwin and Joe were looking to make a profit. 

She did spy some of the surveyors further out, standing with their instruments, talking among themselves, looking pretty harmless in general. Potential witnesses who might end up in the line of fire, but it didn’t look like they’d be a problem. What kind of surveyors would come out here in the dead of night? She could ignore them, she decided. 

She had just tuned her bugging kit back into the shack when the sat phone beeped. 

“What?” she said. 

“Sameen,” Root said. Panting. Not the fun kind. The in pain, probable gunshot wound kind. “Sameen, how’s my favorite girl?” 

“Root, where are you?”

“The Machine wants you to rest until it’s go time again. And she’s ordered some protein shakes for you back at the cabin.” 

“Are you shot?” 

“Through and through. I’m okay. The point is, right now you’re Her contingency. Well—you or Lionel. And Bear. That’s it. She has other assets, but we’re her primaries. And we all have an important job to do.” Another groan of pain. 

“You have to stop the bleeding,” Sameen said. “I can’t help you from here. You know that.”

“Go back to the cabin. And keep an eye out for any monsters under the floor boards, okay? Something for you to do when you’re cold and thinking about me. Bye-bye.”

“Don’t bye-bye me.” 

Back to the cabin as ordered. A new package had been stuffed under the door: another phone. Antiseptic. Gauze. Tape. Clean needles. Stitching. For Root, she thought instinctively, then stopped. Didn’t necessarily have to be for Root. Could be for a deer or something like that. Working the numbers always ended up with her doing some ass-backwards act of stupid. 

The next thing she did was actually check the floorboards, tapping the ground until she found a hollow spot just underneath the bed. There was considerable space just below, a sloping and deep ditch. 

“Shoo,” she said to the possum living beneath. When it hissed at her, she gave it a look and put her hand on her gun. That was enough to get it to scram. 

She extended her arm down the black possum’s nest, reaching as far down as she could until her fingers hit something cool and damp. Dirt. 

“Looks like a grave,” she said. 

 

***

 

3.

 

At midnight she was back in the hunting range, tracking Joe and Godwin. They had a rhino with them, recently killed. Dollar for dollar, it was probably the biggest buck they had. And out here, who was to say what it had died from? A truck came rolling in. Four guys came out, all armed. 

Tensions were high from the get-go. Something wasn’t going right with the pick-up. From the sound of it, they wanted special products: not just the horn, but slices of bone and tissue, dried up and specially prepared for strength. 

“We don’t do that kind of stuff,” said Joe. “When did you guys start getting all new age-y?”

“Boss gave us orders. Not satisfied with what you’re offering anymore. Too bad.” 

Guns drawn. That was her cue. 

She went in with a nice shot to the elbow to a guy in alpine camo. The next shots took more effort: kneecaps for buzz cut man and neckbeard requiring two tries each. Ricochet from a missed bullet caught the last truck man in the arm. He ran off and was shot down by Godwin. Then those two clowns went searching for her, making her scramble around the compound until she could catch their blind spot and coldcock them both. 

When she was done, she tied everyone up and dumped Godwin and Joe back in their barn. The other four she threw into the back of the truck they had arrived in, which she thought was a nice bit of poetry. 

That left her with a hunk of C2, a spare cellphone, and a lot of ammo. She climbed into the truck and started the engine, but couldn’t think of what to do or where to go. She had to sit at the wheel for a second before figuring it out.

She picked up the sat phone. “Root.” 

Silence. Then a snap. “Sameen.” It was Root’s voice, but not her: a clear electronic distortion was just below the voice.

“Where’s Root?” 

“Indisposed. Sorry. I can change to another voice if you want. Is this better?”

“You seriously think Control’s voice is going to do it for me?” She almost hung up, but stopped. She needed information. Both on this mission and on Root. Yelling at the Machine wasn’t going to help her. “Is she dead?” 

“Cannot confirm. Analogue Interface is in a dead zone. Requesting for you to complete this mission before initiating extraction.” Cole’s voice this time. The Machine sounded more confident with him than Control, at least. 

“Okay,” she said. 

“Thank you, Sameen.” 

Shut up, she almost said. She didn’t want to hear that Root was in a deadzone. Root getting stuck in deadzones was exactly how they wound up with John and Harold dead. “You never told me whether this was a relevant mission or not,” she said. 

“Number is relevant. I have approximate GPS coordinates for the last known location of their leader. Do you prefer verbal interaction or textual?”

“I don’t need you talking to me.” 

“You will be out of range of cell phone towers. Permission to intervene via sat phone in case of danger.” 

“Don’t phrase it like you’re my subordinate. You talk to Root like that?” She didn’t want to know how the Machine talked to Root. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. She wanted to have a number, an actual mission partner, and a shootout. Her hand wrapped around the sat phone. “You’re trying to look out for me, I get that. But I don’t need you to and I don’t want you to, either. Aren’t you all about free will?” 

“Acknowledged.” 

“And one more thing,” she said. “Don’t use Cole’s voice on me again.” 

The burner phone buzzed. 

_I’M SORRY_

_I THOUGHT IT’D MAKE YOU COMFORTABLE. I WAS WRONG_

“Just pick whatever voice you want or something and stick with it,” Sameen said. Jesus. If she had known getting fired from the ISA would mean comforting a robot overlord while its girlfriend was off ten feet underground, she would have tried to rejoin them instead of faking her own death. 

The next message had directions. Off-road. She started the truck.

 

*** 

 

Dawn. A forest. This wasn’t where she remembered being. 

Her head hurt. She was on her side next to a rock wall four feet tall or so. A lot of trees. Had she fallen? No gunshot injuries, nothing sprained or broken. Dead body at her feet. She had a headache, but it didn’t feel like a TBI. Not that people with brain injuries were great at recognizing when they had one. 

Although. The headache was familiar in a way she found unpleasant. She touched behind her ear. 

“Sure, fine,” she muttered. Grazed by a bullet. Not much blood, no real pain, and not deep. Just enough to set off a simulation-programmed Samaritan blackout. She rolled over onto her hands and knees and stood up. When nothing gushed, she took out the first aid kit the Machine had provided, swabbed it with antiseptic, and taped some gauze over the injury just in case. 

Her hands were shaking. She had been dreaming of the day Samaritan almost captured Finch. She had gone to the jail with Reese while Fusco checked out the hospital. By the time they got to the jail, Finch had spirited himself away and Fusco had reported people were telling him Root was dead but he couldn’t find a body. The best case scenario was that she had been captured. The worst was that Samaritan had dragged her out of the hospital and killed her. 

She hadn’t wanted to think about that again. She hadn’t wanted to think about what they’d do to Root if she was captured. Had considered the possibility that Root might’ve hauled herself from the brink of death and plunged underground to recuperate, but not seriously enough given the reported wounds and Machine silence. And by the time Root came back, Finch had gone off the deep end and it was too late to stop anyone. 

Body at her feet was chubby, bearded, with two bullets in the chest. Not breathing, no pulse. Looked like bullets were still in the body. No exit wounds that she could see. 

Fuck. Her head hurt like hell. 

Memory was coming back now. She had parked the truck in the middle of a forest and walked around until she spotted smoke coming from the south. She followed the smoke to some other cabin in the woods. By that time she was way out of range of a cell tower. 

Cabin had been empty but showed signs of recent occupancy. She had been irritated that he was making her track him down. He was a dead man already. Dead men should know when to surrender. 

Then what. She had tracked him… He had run… There had been a shootout, a crazy one, her handgun and shotgun against an assault rifle. She had managed to get his wrist and clipped him in the gut. He had run again, dropping the gun, and she had gone after him, thinking the hard part was over. But he knew the terrain better than her and, in the dark, she had fallen off the path and landed where she was now. He must have come around to finish her off. Too bad she had been with it enough to get him instead. 

Only problem was that now she had no idea how to get back to the truck. Should she lug the body back with her? She’d have to. Had to do disposal, even out here. God, she hated runners. The only piece of good news was that she remembered that there was a sled in the cabin, left from winter. Once she walked far enough to orient herself to the cabin, she dropped the body, fetched the sled, and dragged the body back to the cabin. 

Before she entered the blackout zone, the Machine had told her to investigate the cabin. And after a little searching, she found what she was looking for: notebooks, maps, detailed plans, and a decent pile of guns. Plans were to head to Texas tomorrow to blow up a federal judge. Big court case coming up. Didn’t look like he thought it’d go his way. At the bottom of the last page was an anxious note: where was the fucking rhino dick? A barbecue had been planned. 

She took out the sat phone. 

“Is Root there?” 

“Recuperating,” the Machine said. Finch’s voice this time. “Deep sleep. Required for optimal performance. Update requested.”

“Found the leader. They had an assassination planned for a federal judge. What do you want me to do?” 

“Elimination of all parties is acceptable.” 

“You’re not just saying that because Finch is dead, right?” she said. 

“If you have any doubt, then we should turn them in to the authorities.” 

“No—look. I don’t have doubt.” 

“Requesting clarification.” 

“I guess I was joking,” she said uncomfortably. Why hadn’t Root warned her about robot anxiety? She rubbed her forehead. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.” 

“Yes.” 

“You could have told us you had Root. That you knew where she was. If you had told us, Finch never would’ve fucking lost it.” 

“Permission to speak.” 

“I’m not your keeper.” 

“There were Samaritan operatives at the hospital. Had Analogue Interface remained there, they would have captured her. I could not allow that. Admin also was not willing to commit to the drastic action required to ensure optimal survival of assets. The path he was on would have resulted in Analogue Interface being assassinated in the hospital or captured and killed after extraction of information or captured and used as bait to lure remaining assets into capture and/or death. I ran simulations and determined likelihood of survival for all parties was unacceptably low under given parameters, under point five percent. So I took action to maneuver Analogue Interface to safety. 

“Trust in tertiary assets was misplaced. I imperiled Analogue Interface and by extension Primary Assets and Admin. I feared she was dead. I did not anticipate how drastic or efficient the Admin’s actions would be.” 

“Bullshit. You facilitated him. You could have made him take another direction, but you wanted to win. You got scared and fucked up and by the time you realized it, it had gone too far and you couldn’t reverse without Finch turning against you. If he hadn’t protected you, you would’ve died. That’s it. You let him die so you could stay alive.” 

“I’m sorry, Sameen.” 

“Why?” 

“I hurt you. I let them die, like you said.” 

“I’m mad. I’m mad, but I get it. In war you act with what information you have. And sometimes you FUBAR it.” 

“I am—”

“Get a therapist. I’m hanging up.” 

She wired up an IED using Root’s special Russian. Then she took the guys in the back of the truck and put them in the cabin and drove away. Just like old times and nothing like it. 

 

*** 

 

4.

 

According to the Machine, she still had to take care of Godwin. Please kill me first, she thought, but the Machine wouldn’t stop bugging her. Bad people might still come after Godwin. The barn wasn’t going to be safe for him. So she had to pick him up and haul him all the way over to the cabin and dump him, yelping and shouting, in the possum nest beneath the cabin. 

“Just stay there for a while and someone will come and pick you up or something,” Sameen said. “I don’t know. I’m late for something. Bye.” 

Her next stop was to Cheyenne’s airport, destination Reno. Greener than she expected for Nevada. The first thing she saw was crest after crest of spindly green tufts. 

The Machine let her steal a hot car from the airport garage instead of renting something. She drove off to a hotel downtown and went up to a room on the twenty-third floor. The door opened to her hand. 

It was about as generic as a hotel suite could get. Blackout curtains drawn shut against the light, the fold-out couch extended with rumpled covers, bloody gauze stuffed into a trash bin, familiar heels kicked in front of a desk. 

The bedroom was behind a door. She opened it expecting to find Root pinned to the bed by wooziness and injury. Instead she walked in on her mid-costume change: plain black pants and an unbuttoned white shirt and a dealer’s vest. Her hair falling over one shoulder, her hand struggling to button up the shirt. When she saw Sameen, she tilted her head to the right, her eyes narrowing. 

“The Machine didn’t tell you I was coming,” Sameen said. 

“Your cold reads are scary, sweetie. She’s filling me in now.”

“Sit on the bed.” She liked it when Root listened to her, she decided. 

Beneath the button-up shirt was a thin t-shirt. Sameen tugged at the collar, then rolled up the hem. Dressings looked old. But it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. There was evidence someone had patched her up. Someone with better technique than Root’s own half-assed style of put-some-tape-over-it-done. 

“Antibiotics?” she said. 

“No infection, so no.” 

“Bedrest for forty-eight hours. I’ll do whatever job the Machine needs until then.” 

Root leaned back in the bed and said, “Did you really fall off a cliff because you were worried about me?” 

“How did she find out about that?” 

“Oops. Must’ve left the sat phone on. She’s very good at inference.” 

“It wasn’t a cliff. And it was dark.” 

“Okay, Shaw.” There was something tolerant and patient about the angle of Root’s head. She was humoring Sameen. She had no intention of letting Sameen run the Machine’s job. She was probably conspiring with the Machine right now: turn your head left to send Sameen for a mission to get beer, right to let her shoot someone. Or flex your foot for yes. Wiggle your index finger for no. She had watched Root in deep conversation with the Machine before: muttering harshly under her breath or petting the back of her laptop with endorphin-flushed cheeks or making eye contact with one camera, then another, then looking for reflections of herself, not out of vanity, but to know that she was being seen—which Sameen personally thought was more than a little narcissistic. 

“Hey,” Sameen said. Root smiled at her and lifted her hips suggestively. She ignored it and said, “What do I have to do to get you to stay in?” 

“I can think of some things.”

“I’m serious.” When Root sighed and turned her head into a pillow, Sameen grabbed Root’s shin, digging her nails in, then released her. “Fine. Whatever. Go do your job.” 

“It’s a critical job, but not a dangerous one. And it requires some sleight of hand, sweetie. Not even She can turn you into a card shark in two hours.” Root sat up, her fingers dipping into the indents left by Sameen’s nails. She liked it when Sameen got rough. “If you’re feeling antsy, She says you can come and play with us.”

That was about as good as it was going to get. It didn’t satisfy her. But she could live with it, more or less. 

“Fine,” she said. 

 

***

 

She was provided with an outfit that screamed “tourist from Illinois” and ticket stubs to a Bonnie Raitt concert. She had a fanny pack full of quarters. 

“Why?” she said. 

“I’ve always liked tourists,” Root said. “They’re so easy. Did you ever do that one trick where you pretend to take them to a subway stop and then hold them for ransom?” 

Florence. 2011. A Ukrainian businessman’s daughter. Half a million in USD to be funneled into a paramilitary group and retirement from politics. “Morons,” she said. 

They went to a different hotel downtown, through a series of alleyways. They split at the entrance of a hotel with a Roman fountain in the lobby, Root vanishing into the crowd and Sameen forcing herself to go in through the front entrance and into the casino. She parked herself at a slot machine that gave her a good view of the blackjack tables, switched on the bug she had planted on Root in the hotel, and started feeding the slots quarters. 

It took about twenty minutes for Root to make her way to the table. The personality Root had on today: ingratiating, cynically peppy, and friendly in a contemptuous way, designed to provoke reactions from Mr. Black Shirt Red Tie and a bearded man with a ponytail. Black Shirt Red Tie was losing more and more and an hour in, the bearded man cashed out, slinking out looking grateful he no longer had to speak with the dealer. 

Now she could watch Root work on Black Shirt. Root had him enthralled, from the top of his sweating, angry forehead to his nervous, twitching leg. Root was toying with him, drawing him closer to revealing something. What? Something worth a lot of money to the right people that was also small and easily transported, probably stowed away in the casino vault. Gems? Tech? When Black Shirt finally got up, Root gave her a sharp look from across the room and nodded after him. 

Her phone buzzed. 

_SPARE ROOM SERVICE KEY ON FLOOR OF SUPPLY CLOSET 13th FLOOR NEAR VENDING MACHINES_

She fetched the spare key. Once she picked it up, her phone buzzed again. 

_ROOM 1203_

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Root said. “All three of us working together, no one bleeding to death…?” 

“What are you doing now, Root?” 

“Oh, you know. Watching you on hotel security cameras. Getting ready to admire the carnage.” 

By that time she already had her hand on the doorknob. “The room’s not empty?”

“Oops. I guess She wanted it to be a surprise.”

No getting out of it now. She opened the door. 

There was another man in the room, a confused guy fumbling with a gun he had rammed in his waistband. She ran across the room, slid across the desk, and threw herself feet-first into his solar plexus. She tried to swing into a leg choke, but he managed to raise his arm just enough to block her. Just enough leverage to force her center of mass too low to get good power. She settled for smashing his nose with her other leg and, when his hands flew up to cover his face, she kicked through his hands and finally got the choke in. Then she hauled him into the bathroom and stuffed him into the shower. She checked out his gun. Twenty-two, Remington, bog standard. She had better toys. 

“That wasn’t a carnage,” Sameen said. 

“Not for _you_ ,” Root said in a possessive coo. “Target’s approaching. Watch out for his package. Meet me back at our room.” 

It was another five minutes before Black Shirt opened the door. She snuck up behind him and knocked him out. 

He was carrying a long, padded bag with a cylinder inside. Hefty all around, but didn’t have the feel of something metal. Schematics? She’d let Root take care of it. 

She took the bag and returned to the hotel. Root sitting on the hotel bed, laptop open. 

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said without looking up. 

“What is it?” Sameen said. She shook off the tourist clothes, tossing them onto the floor. 

“Rembrandt. Stolen back in 1990. We’re trading this for deeper access to the EU’s seed banks and a minority stake in a certain telecommunications company. We’re going to save humanity. Isn’t that nice?” She shut her computer and licked her lips. “Come here, Sameen,” she said. 

She had her shirt off, bra clasp undone, straps spread across her shoulders. She went to Root. Something about the calm and intense way Root watched her made her want to get on her knees. No way she was going to give that to her right away. 

“What?” she said.

Root put her thumb just below Sameen’s sternum, curved the rest of her fingers around the dramatic sweep of her ribs. Her hands were cool against Sameen’s skin. Then she dug in, pushing her thumb up and digging in with her fingers like she was trying to pull something out. Sameen grit her teeth but didn’t do anything. 

“Good girl,” Root said. “You can come onto the bed now. Hands and knees. Get over me.” 

Listening to Root’s orders was a guarantee to end up doing something stupid and uncomfortable. In this case, hovering over a fully clothed Root, her bra dangling away from her body, waiting to see whether this would lead to sex or topless making out or another tazing. From what she could tell, Root didn’t have anything planned; all she had was appreciation and self-satisfaction at having Sameen over her. She removed Sameen's bra and her face turned radiant with smugness. 

“My back’s getting cold,” Sameen said, and was slapped across the face, hot and stinging and impersonal. Just hard enough to make her head turn. She opened and closed her jaw and adjusted her head. “That’s the best you can do?” 

“You want me to hurt you, Sameen?” 

“Yeah,” she said. 

She couldn’t fucking believe Root went straight for the neck chomp, no warm up or even a starter kiss. She tried to rear up, but Root’s arm came around her waist and kept her down. Her other hand had a knife in it, tip digging into Sameen’s stomach harder than strictly necessary. It was sharp. 

“Put your hand on my wrist,” Root said, and she did. Root flipped them over and Sameen laughed giddily. There had been a moment when there was nothing touching her but Root and the point of a knife. That was the kind of shit she lived for. Root kissed her, dropping some of her weight onto the knife, reaching with her other hand for Sameen’s throat, a playful, nails-digging-in, total squeeze. Sameen almost tried to throw her off, but that would’ve impaled her right onto the knife. She pushed against Root’s hand, raised a knee, pressed her hips into the bed—Root wouldn’t choke her for long, just enough to make them both squirm, to make Sameen desperate and lightheaded. And just as always, Root’s hand slid up to her face, her gun calluses turning rough against Sameen’s cheek and ear. 

“Are you going to stab me?” Sameen said, squinting up at Root. 

“Do you want to try?” Root said. “I’ve never done it before, but I believe in breaking new ground.” 

“Root. Root, no. You can cut me a little.” 

More weight coming down, breaking skin this time. Root grinned when Sameen went still. She brought her face closer. “Want to help me out?” she whispered. 

“You’re really just trying to piss me off, aren’t you?” she said. She adjusted her grip on Root’s wrist for more control and firmer contact, and let Root kiss her. She guided the knife to her chest, raising her body up, giving Root’s hand encouraging little squeezes when Root pulled at her hair, when the knife cut across the top of her breasts and down her chest, knife crossing over dangerous and, more importantly, hotter territory. Her face and chest were hot, she was hot everywhere; the cuts felt as though they were inviting more heat in instead of letting it out. She wanted to be fucked already. Ugh, was Root smirking into this kiss? 

Root cut the underwear off her. Root’s other hand on Sameen’s chest, smeared with messy blood. Fuck, had she really bled that much? She found that to be a comfort: no matter what happened, Root would always give her as much as she wanted. 

“Look at you. My bloody little soldier.”

“That’s not sexy,” Sameen said immediately. “That’s not an actual thing I find sexy.” 

She could see Root running through lists, then tilting her head to consult the Machine. She sometimes stopped breathing to hear the Machine better. Sameen was going to have to tell her to stop doing that some time. At night it made her think about sleep apnea. “My bloody, beautiful girl.”

That awakened a memory of something—she couldn’t figure it out. A simulation. Simulations four thousand through six thousand had a lot of pet names. After that she tried to skip right to blowing her brains out. 

She must have stiffened because Root had lifted the knife away and was looking down at her, her eyes dark beneath her brow. “Do you want to take a break?” she said. 

She shut her eyes and took a breath and held it, more annoyed to have been caught than in actual distress. It was Root. It was real. She liked it. She had liked it then, too. When she let it go, she said, “Yeah. Thanks. I’m fine now.” She shifted uncomfortably below Root. Some of the blood was rolling off her sides and getting on the bedspread. “Get to the good part already.” 

Root set the knife on the nightstand. She pressed her face against the cuts she had made on Sameen’s stomach and bit down. 

“Fuck!” she groaned. It stung and ached and would probably bruise later. And good, that was good. She spread her legs when Root dug her fingers into her thighs, bit her lip when she felt the cuts on her stomach split open under Root’s tongue, when Root’s fingers filled and stretched inside her. She felt like she was running out—running out of what, she couldn’t put an actual word to it, and that was what she wanted, too. 

“Put your leg on my shoulder,” Root said. 

“That’s your bad shoulder. You’ve been shot there like five times.” 

“So sad you can’t add to my pile of troubles,” she said, switching legs and pulling Sameen closer so she could get her tongue around her clit. The cold air stung on her stomach, the crusted cuts on her chest opened up again as she bucked into Root’s mouth. She put her hands in Root’s hair, pulling her close enough that she knew she was cutting off her air. When she eased her grip, Root took her hand and put it over Sameen’s. Root brought herself closer, the tip of her tongue bending hot and alive around her. She came not long after, her eyes screwing shut and toes curling so hard she almost gave herself a foot cramp. 

When she came to, Root was petting her hair. She didn't mind it. 

“Did you bring a vibe?” she said. 

“No. I did pack your butt plug. I was told you’d probably prefer that.”

“Keep your Machine out of my toys.” 

“Sorry,” Root said cheerfully. She ran her hand over Sameen’s thigh then said, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

That involved rubbing alcohol and her hands gripping the headboard as Root sloshed pain all over her torso. It only got worse when Root slid her fingers back in, fucking her like she was trying to win an award for most tender dickhead. By the time she came again, she was red from her face down to her shins and trembling. But at least the cuts wouldn’t get infected. 

“Wait a minute,” Sameen said when Root went to get her laptop. “What about you?” 

“I’m okay.”

“I wanna, though. Come on. I want to.” 

“I know, sweetie. But She would feel bad about it, so for now, we’re abstaining. I’ll let you know when we’ve worked it out. Go to sleep. Sleep,” she repeated, this time as an order. So she did. 

 

*** 

5\. 

 

She woke up three hours later hungry and restless. Her hand fell across her stomach. Scabs still there. Good. 

Root wasn’t in bed. She could hear Root talking to the Machine in the other room. She pulled on some clothes and crept to the doorway. Root was sprawled out on the couch in her old man pajamas, laptop on the coffee table, hand over her eyes. Her nostrils were red. She was trying not to cry. 

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t like it. We’ve done a lot of things he didn’t like. Oh, Harry. I’m so sad for you. I’m sorry. Yes, I’d appreciate it if we could move onto something else. It’s okay. I miss him, too. I know.” Her hand came away from her face. She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. She raised her head and said, “Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi,” Sameen said. She went to join Root on the couch, giving the Machine a curt nod before she sat down. “You should be resting.”

“I am.” 

She looked at the Machine again and said, “Does she speak to you in Finch’s voice?” 

“Sometimes. She told me She’d actually prefer to use my voice, but She felt like it’d be awkward given that I’m still alive. She says She’ll switch full time to my voice when I’m gone. Isn’t that great?” The tears rolled out of her eyes in two fat parallel lines. “Shit,” she said, and dabbed at her cheeks. Sameen moved the tissue box from the desk to the couch. Root sniffled and blew her nose a few times. “Sorry.” 

“It’s really fine,” Sameen said. 

“I just miss him so much. Him and the big lug. I mean, we agreed on absolutely nothing when it came to Her, but I liked that about him.” She blinked up at the ceiling, smiling and shaking her head. “I used to be so happy that he’d even talk to me. I had to kidnap him twice and he locked me up twice and I don’t think he even really liked me very much for the longest time, but it was so amazing. It was so amazing knowing what the man who made God thought She should become. I was so happy talking to him. And now I’m all alone. I know I shouldn’t call him big lug anymore, but I think he liked it?” 

“I’m getting you a blanket,” she said. She went back to the bedroom and hauled the comforter off the bed and draped it over Root. Root had moved from resisting tears to curling up with her face against her knees and breathing hard and letting tears soak her pajama pants. “Thinking about room service,” she said, picking the menu off the tray. “Want anything?” 

“Apple pie.”

“I don’t see it listed. Are you okay with chocolate cake?” Yes, she was okay with chocolate cake, but from the looks of it, Root would be putting apple pie on the menu for tomorrow. Sameen put the order in. 

“Did you know he had a secret GitHub?” Root said. “She had to tell me about it. He invented a whole new programming language. There was no support, but it was incredible. I wanted to convert all my projects to it. And his changelogs! So much to learn. He was pretty funny when he wasn’t being a sanctimonious ass about everything. I learned it to help Her out with a special mission. And then I realized I’m the only one who can touch Her now, and I’m terrified of steering Her wrong. Do you think that’s what he felt?” 

“No,” Sameen said. “He was scared. He made the wrong choices.” 

“He thought they were right at the time. I have to remember that.” Sameen was relieved that whatever she said seemed to make Root feel better about Harold. Root was sitting with her elbows against her knees and some tangent making itself evidence in her distracted, sideways squint. “She told me what you two talked about in Wyoming.” 

Oh boy. “Yeah?” 

“I don’t think you were wrong. To be upset. I mean, I do think you went a little overboard, but you were within your rights to be angry.”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ in there,” Sameen said. 

“You should be hearing the screams of victims everywhere, because yours is smashing.” When Sameen snorted, she said, “I appreciate a work of art when I see it.” 

“You can go back to crying now,” she said. 

“I’m feeling better. Thanks for listening.” 

“It’s okay. I want to try.” 

“You don’t have to,” Root said. “It’s not like I like having feelings, either.” 

“Just give me your hand,” she said. They sat together until room service arrived. When Root finished eating, she brushed her teeth and fell asleep on the couch wrapped up in the comforter. When she had been asleep for an hour, Sameen stepped out to the pharmacy for supplies. 

 

*** 

 

“I think she’s running a fever,” Sameen said to the laptop early in the morning. “I checked the wound site and it looks clean, but I don’t want her going anywhere today. I can handle anything she can.” 

_REQUESTING PERMISSION TO OPEN DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH ASSET_

“Fine.” She smoothed her hair back and said, “You can use her voice today.” 

“Is it really okay?” She didn’t sound much like Root. She sounded younger. More scared. There was a purposeful distortion in the lower and higher frequencies. It was okay. 

Just before four in the morning, the Machine led her to a parking garage. It was a pretty basic drop: she handed off the painting, they confirmed the electronic transfers, everyone left happy. According to the Machine, they were probably going to transfer the painting to an Australian mining tycoon. The Machine had plans for that, and a weird affection for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 

Instead of going straight back to the hotel, she went to the tallest office building in Reno and got herself roof access. 

Up here, the wind whipped around her ears and blew her hair around her face. She could see the mountains pushed against the western edge of the city and the sun rising grudgingly over an endless expanse of brown. 

She had never liked going out west that much, never felt like she blended in well enough. But this was the kind of place John had been raised. Colorado or whatever. John could’ve been from anywhere. She couldn’t remember when she had learned he was from Colorado. Something Samaritan had dug up about him and leaked to her? Something she had found out by herself? Them’s the simulated breaks. 

Finch. He was from some podunk town in the Midwest. That was all she had ever gotten out of him. 

She bet Finch would have wanted them to stop this. Go home, run numbers to save people, go to bed secure in a feeling of do good and Internet anonymity. John would’ve wanted to do whatever Finch told him to do. They had probably been in love. You couldn’t hire that kind of loyalty anywhere. 

Root wanted to save humanity. Dumbest mission Sameen had ever heard. You start saving humanity and you end up unhappy and unsatisfied and dead in an unmarked grave. 

And what she wanted. She was getting more like John. She wanted to protect what she had. In her case, it amounted to Root, her guns, Bear and not much else. She was fine with that. Her father had been a soldier and he had come back and settled down. It wasn’t that she planned on getting domestic, but her childhood had been a good one and her father had been happy. She could be happy with Root. She wanted that. 

“Hey,” she said. 

“Yes.” 

“There’s something we need to talk about.” 

“I am listening.”

“Sometimes those pauses when I’m speaking are just—you don’t have to fill in every time, okay? I know you’re listening.” Silence this time. The wind blew in her face. Sameen moved so she was shielded behind a generator in shadow. “Where do you think we’ll be ten years from now?” 

“For Primary Asset Shaw: fifty-three percent chance of serious injury or death in ten years. Probability reduced if asset accepts reduced workload. Likelihood of asset accepting reduced workload is tied directly to analogue interface’s willingness to accept delegation of duties.” 

The Machine talking about probabilities about Root in Root’s voice was probably a weird pornographic fantasy of theirs. Sameen tried to not think too hard about that. 

“I don’t need us to live forever. I just want her to be okay.” That was uncomfortable to admit. The last time she had said anything like that, she had been pointing a gun to her own head. She knew she could keep going without Root, that wasn’t the problem. But she didn’t want to give up. Having attachments sucked. 

“They have forgotten about Control.” 

“Are you fucking with me here?” 

“Necessary to reestablish relevant program to secure relative longevity of Primary Asset and Analogue Interface.” 

“She’s tried to kill me at least three times.” 

“She is the only acceptable choice. Unless Primary Asset wants to take the role.” 

“Nope.” 

“Mission has been assigned.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Priority high. Plane ticket booked for tomorrow evening. Analogue Interface will provide mission support. Generating cover identity. Assembling necessary supplies at drop site. Failed Father. Failed Primary Asset Reese. Will not fail again. Will do better. Will have new priorities.”

“Quit oversharing all the time,” she said. 

 

***

 

She had to put the Machine back on text-only support on her way back to the hotel. She couldn’t deal with having her in her ear. She knew what grieving looked like and she guessed whatever was going on with the Machine right now was pretty close to it. Robot grief. 

She had a job again. Seemed like her whole career was getting fired from one place and picked up by a dodgy gray sector. Hard to tell how to feel about that. If she needed to, she could probably find a way to vanish. 

Root wouldn’t, though. That was the problem. 

It was just past eight when she returned to the hotel. Root was in bed, on top of the sheets, laptop on her chest and an air of severe melodrama over her. 

“I’m dying,” she said. 

“You’re dehydrated. I got you antibiotic cream. Sit up so I can change your dressings.” 

“Okay, doctor.”

“This isn’t roleplay. Quit it.” But she got Root a glass of water and applied the antibiotic cream to her skin and redid the bandages. And afterwards she took Root’s temperature and blood pressure and heartrate and wrote it down on a little notepad. 

“So, a little bird told me you have a mission.”

“Not until tomorrow.” 

“We’ll be on the same plane,” Root said. “But She said She wants you to do most of the shooting. She’s never sidelined me before.”

Sameen watched Root carefully. She didn’t know how much the Machine had told her. The two of them talked all the time about everything, it seemed. It felt weird to have a secret between her and the Machine. Who knew how long it’d stay that way. 

“She wants you to be careful,” Sameen said. “We want you to take care of yourself.” 

Root turned over in bed and patted the side. “Lie down for a second.” 

She almost said no, but she recognized something in Root’s face. She wanted to talk. Sameen got on the bed and let Root put her hand under her shirt and feel the rough pattern of bruises and shallow cuts she had left behind. 

“When I was away,” Root said. “I mean, after I took the sniper bullet for Harry and woke up in a bunker in Ontario. While I was up there, I kept thinking, ‘It would be really dumb if my last words to Sameen were about shapes.’ But then I thought about it some more and now I think it’s okay. I’d be okay with complimenting your ass and dropping dead.” 

“What did I literally just say about you taking care of yourself?” 

“I’m saying that’s what I was thinking about then. Up there. And I… Have you noticed how She’s becoming more like Harry? She’s so concerned about everything and kind of controlling.” Root had her chin against Sameen’s shoulder now. Her hand was tracing circles up her stomach. If this was pillowtalk, she was going to get up. “And I started thinking, why is that? She was different before. And I realized She’s been running simulations. She recreates him constantly. I wish I could do that. All I have are memories of, ‘Ms. Groves, that would be immoral.’ It’s like he’s still with Her.” 

“With the Machine. There’s a difference.” 

“Lionel’s not with us now, but he’s still out there somewhere. What difference would it make if he were somewhere out there in his body in New York versus being somewhere out there in the Machine?” 

She waited to see whether Root actually was trying to have a conversation or if she was just slinging shit. Fuck. Seriously? “Should I let his son know he’s an orphan now?” she said. 

“I’m talking metaphysically. The entity of Lionel Fusco. Looking at it another way, there are ‘Y’ forks, where two things split from a common origin, and ‘W’ forks, where two entities are created in parallel and follow a common algorithmic set to independently generate similar shapes. And then I started thinking: if you take any given W, you can eventually find its common point of origin. So every W fork is a Y with an origin too far for us to find.” 

“But it’s not the same,” she said. “I actually lived inside those simulations. They never convinced me.” 

“It also depends on what tolerances you’re setting for sameness,” Root said primly. 

She was so stubborn, so confident in her crazy ideas of… whatever it was. Reality. She wanted to point out, Samaritan would never make you say this. Samaritan would never have had you point a gun at your own head and threaten to take it off. Samaritan never would have had you yammering on about alphabet soup. 

Sameen wasn’t hurt or confused. She wasn’t even angry. She was happy. She was happy to be here on this bed having this stupid conversation. 

Still. 

“You have a fever,” she said. “Save the metaphysics for a firefight or a car chase.” 

“I know it’s a sensitive subject because of Samaritan’s simulations,” Root said. “But if you thought about it some more, you’d really come around to seeing it my way.” 

“I’m going to sleep,” she said, and shut her eyes. 

 

***

 

She was awakened forty minutes later by Root shaking her shoulder. 

“I’m just saying, if six-year-old me had never learned how to program?” Root said. “And if you let that six-year-old incompetent idiot go on for another thirty years? I refuse to think of that as someone that even vaguely resembles me. If you accept the multiverse, then you have to acknowledge that there is a version of me that never learned how to hack or shoot a gun except to kill a bird or something. And why should that be me more than the Machine’s version of me, even if it is 'just' a simulation?” 

“Oh my god,” Sameen said, and covered her face with her hands. Was this going to be her life from now on? Was this why she had escaped from South Africa? She had smuggled herself onto a refrigerated ship for three thousand miles. She had nearly frozen to death for this. “Why can’t you let go of this? Fuck.” 

“The Machine is disagreeing with me,” Root said. “But I’m sure She’s only disagreeing to make sure your opinion is represented. Or something.” 

“I’m sleeping on the couch. You can cuddle with simulation shape Sameen.” 

“Sameen,” she said. And Sameen didn’t get out of bed, only lifted her shoulder blades up and pretended to move her feet to the edge. Pretended to reconsider and resettled back into her spot in the sheets. Root’s eyes were teary. Not in the ‘about to start crying about John or Harold’ way, but in a plainer, less scary way. Scaring herself with hypothetical deaths. 

She felt bad for Root and took a moment to test her words against herself before saying them. She didn’t want Root to be upset. For selfish reasons, like going back to sleep, but for other ones, too. She wanted to make Root happy. She wanted Root to sleep through the night without crying about Harold and John or waking her up to talk about shapes. 

“You’re fine now,” Sameen said. “We’re fine. We won.” That was probably good enough. Except. “If you have an ass joke, just say it now, don’t hold it in.” 

“Sweetie,” Root said. Looking groggy but determined. A delicate happiness thinned her lips and the corners of her eyes. She brought the back of her hand to Sameen’s face and stroked her cheek. “I have a plug for that fine ass. … Raincheck?” 

“Good night,” she said. Unbelievable. In a few hours she’d have to be awake again to take Root’s vitals and get them food and deal with more dumb metaphysical yammering. Who knew whether that would be worth it. Even if it wouldn’t be, she could find a way to live with it. 


End file.
